Many pixels have been spilled over the declining literacy of students. According a Pew-funded study:

• More than 75 percent of students at 2-year colleges and more than 50 percent of students at 4-year colleges do not score at the proficient level of literacy. This means that they lack the skills to perform complex literacy tasks, such as comparing credit card offers with different interest rates or summarizing the arguments of newspaper editorials.
• Students in 2- and 4-year colleges have the greatest difficulty with quantitative literacy: approximately 30 percent of students in 2-year institutions and nearly 20 percent of students in 4-year institutions have only Basic quantitative literacy. Basic skills are those necessary to compare ticket prices or calculate the cost of a sandwich and a salad from a menu.

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A hearing was held, according to the Courant, to determine whether there’s a need to raise the legal smoking age from 18 to 19. This kind of legislation continues the infantalisation of society, where laws get proposed to change personal behaviors. There’s much hypocrisy of course, commit a crime at 16 and society demands you be tried as an adult, except of course you’re not legally one. You can drive at 16, but not with friends in the car. At 18 you can join the army, but you can’t drink a beer.

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